Electric stringed instruments, such as electric guitars and electric bass guitars, are well known. Such instruments are capable of producing a wide variety of music and are useful in performing many different styles of music. Keyboard instruments, such as pianos, organs and electronic versions thereof, are also well known.
Musicians are constantly searching for new modes of musical expressions, as well as new instruments for producing and performing them. One such new instrument, the strummable electric harpsichord, disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,967,270, enables a single performer to play, inter alia, electric guitar and electric bass parts using a single keyboard instrument. The '270 patent describes the use of devices (“pluckers”) that pluck or strum strings of the instrument in response to commands received from a processor when one or more keys of a keyboard are depressed by a performer. The pluckers can be programmed to repeatedly pluck their associated strings at varying speeds and for varying durations.
A continuing need exists for new musical instruments that enable a performer to achieve new and unique musical and other sound effects and to do so in different and creative performance styles.